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Campaign Systems / Magic Item Creation / Talismanic Components

Enriching the Campaign

Source Ultimate Campaign pg. 174
Using talismanic components is a fun way to provide more story flavor and local color to a campaign. They make magic items feel more unique and less mass-produced. A +1 flaming longsword is no longer an unremarkable magic item if giving a weapon a +1 enhancement bonus requires a sprinkle of dust from a dead star, and if crafting a flaming weapon requires a fragment of a fire elemental’s spirit. That gives the weapon a sense of history and opens the door to many questions about who originally created the sword, where the creator got the materials for it, and who it was crafted for. Interactions with merchants and traders likewise take on a new flavor if caravans full of goods from distant lands carry a small selection of these obscure crafting components.

Archives of Nethys

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Enriching the Campaign